Yesterday morning the New Jersey Republican State Committee
gleefully paraded a new poll indicating that when New Jersey
residents thought about the state’s Democratic governor, Jim
McGreevey, two words came to mind: political corruption. By
yesterday afternoon, those had been replaced by two new words: Gay
American.
“My truth is that I am a gay American,” announced a teary-eyed McGreevey, sending jaws
plunging across the Garden State. And he wasn’t done. “I am also
here today because, shamefully, I engaged in an adult, consensual
affair with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony. It
was wrong, it was foolish, it was inexcusable, and for this I ask
the forgiveness and the grace of my wife.” It captures something of
the surrealism of the press conference that the governor’s
announcement of his resignation—effective November 15th—seemed
like the height of sensibility.
And in many ways it was. Since assuming office in 2002,
McGreevey has presided over an administration that set new
standards for corruption — and this in a state responsible for the
ethically challenged Robert Torricelli. Only last month, one of the
governor’s fundraisers, David D’Amiano, was indicted on federal
charges of extorting $40,000 in political donations and bribes. He
was in disreputable company. Real estate developer Charles Kushner,
the chairman of Kushner Companies and the most generous donor to
McGreevey’s 2001 gubernatorial campaign, was charged with paying a
call girl $25,000 to videotape her having sex with a witness
cooperating in a grand jury probe of his taxes.
It was Kushner who connected McGreevey with the man with whom
the governor apparently had an affair, Golan Cipel. In January
2001, McGreevey tapped Cipel, then a marketing staffer for Kushner,
to serve as his homeland security adviser at a yearly salary of
$110,000. Amazingly, no background check or official statement
attended the announcement.
The appointment stirred a statewide furor. As it happened,
Cipel, a former Israeli sailor and a published poet, had little to
recommend him for the critical post. Mere months after a terrorist
attack on New York City, the governor’s pick for the state’s top
security office lacked both security clearance and a law
enforcement experience. His background was in television news and
public relations. Indeed, Cipel, an Israeli national, was not even
an American citizen.
Facing surging criticism, McGreevey demoted Cipel to a minor
station as his special counselor. From there, Cipel became the
governor’s liaison to the Jewish community. Meantime, New Jersey’s
Star Ledger reported on McGreevey’s efforts to land Cipel
an apartment near the governor’s Woodbridge home. According to
reporter Josh Margolin, the Cipel “wanted to have a place that was
in close proximity to where the governor was because he was a
personal advisor on call 24 hours.”
Whisperings surfaced that McGreevey, who campaigned with the
theme “Straight Talk,” was anything but straight. Yesterday’s
announcement simply connected the dots; but it also suggested that
McGreevey’s self-outing was a desperate bid to head off a serious
political embarrassment. Said McGreevey, “This affair and my own
sexuality, if kept secret, leaves me, and most importantly, the
governor’s office, vulnerable to rumors, false allegations and
threats of disclosure, so I am removing these threats by telling
you directly about my sexuality.”
Likely, he had in mind a law suit, slated to become public
within the next 24 hours, and detailing his affair with Cipel. All
this casts doubt on the emerging media theme that McGreevey’s
announcement added up to a “gutsy” move that required substantial
political “courage.” After all, the twice-married McGreevey had
ample opportunity to inform his family of his confused sexual
inclinations. He did not. Consequently, it’s a stretch to imagine
that McGreevey’s disclosure was anything more than a desperate form
of crisis management.
All this bids fair to ensure for the long term New Jersey’s
unhappy position at the butt of national jokes. (Already,
McGreevey’s philandering has wags tweaking New Jersey’s “swing
state” status.) Nonetheless, it’s good news for the Bush campaign
and for New Jersey. A state that formerly seemed like a lock for
the Kerry campaign — according to last Sunday’s
Star-Ledger/Eagleton-Rutgers poll Kerry is up by 20
percent — is now due for a backlash against the resident
Democratic Party. Whether Republican strategists can parlay that
resentment into support for the GOP presidential ticket remains to
be seen. But this much is clear: If the truth has set Jim McGreevey
free, it has also unburdened New Jersey of one of the most corrupt
administration’s in recent history.
